The invention relates to an enclosure structure for beds and more particularly to an enclosure structure serving to provide a means for a safe environment for the confused, combative, delirious, unattended, or unconscious patients from falling or climbing from the bed.
One of the many problems encountered in the care of the above category of patients is the manner employed to effectively prevent injury to the patient brought about by the patient leaving the bed, either intentionally or unintentionally. Among the obvious reasons for desiring to constrain a patient's locomotion is to assure the maintenance of intravenous equipment, catheters, and the like, as well as to prevent or minimize the opportunities for a patient from unintentionally falling from the bed and causing a bone fracture. Other reasons include the importance of immobilization of a patient to enable proper knitting of broken bones, and incisions or the like.
Body restraints are often employed to achieve the desired immobilization objectives. While such devices are effective, there are attendant disadvantages. The disadvantages include physical discomfort to the patient, physiological discomfort, and an inability to employ such restraint due to the type of infirmity experienced by the patient.
Attempts have been made by the prior art to overcome certain of the aforementioned disadvantages by developing enclosure-type structures for hospital beds. The most pertinent devices known include the structures illustrated and described in U.S. Letter Pat. Nos. 1,087,804 (1914), 1,119,621 (1914), 1,216,719 (1917), 1,708,855 (1929), and 1,948,048 (1934).
Concededly, the thrust of the prior art devices was to solve the same problems sought by the present invention. However, it has been found that the structure of the present invention provides certain inherent advantages over the prior art as will become apparent from the following description.